Episode Archive

If you suffer from allergic symptoms in the spring (or any other time), your symptoms may be telling you something valuable, that it may be timeto clean things up, make changes, look more deeply at your health. The phenomenon of “allergy” in your body can be related to problems such as chronic fatigue, upper respiratory illness, asthma, eczema, sinus problems, even serious auto-immune diseases.This spring, listen to your stuffiness, itchy or watery eyes, congestion, sinus pain, sneezing, or whatever your particular symptoms are.Your symptoms may be telling you secrets that hold the keys to unlock other mysteries about your health.

Host David Naimon talks with Marion Nestle, professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University about her new book Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics. Nestle and her co-author Malden Nesheim sort through the misinfomation put forth by food manufacturers and diet program promoters and show how federal and corporate policies have come together to create an "eat more" environment. Learn how to interpret food labels, evaluate diet claims and understand evidence presented in the popular media.

Dr. Tieraona Low Dog is a medical doctor, herbalist and midwife. She was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the White House Commission of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, was honored by Time Magazine and NPR as an innovator in the field, and serves as the Fellowship director for the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine and Clnical Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center. She talks with host Dr. David Naimon about her new book, National Geographic Guide to Medicinal Herbs: The World's Most Effective Healing Plants.

Today's Healthwatch features a special hour-long Health and Health Care Forum program hosted by Roberta Hall.

She speaks with Dr. Chinh Le, a Corvallis pediatrician, and Terrence Killian, a manager and social worker at the Children's Farm Home, about 'developmental trauma' and how domestic violence during early life affects children and adults----and strategies to prevent it and to treat it.

Host David Naimon talks with Dr. Steven Nissen, chairman of the department of cardiovascular medicine at Cleveland Clinic about his book Heart 411: The Only Guide to Heart Health You'll Ever Need. Learn which tests you need, how emotions affect your heart and the facts and fictions about heart-healthy eating.

Do vitamins do more harm than good? Several recent studies have suggested that, but the results have been controversial. Host David Naimon talks with Dr. Walter Willett, Chair of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Willett discusses these studies and which vitamins and minerals are advisable to take, and which ones you should avoid.

"This fabulous book is likely to address any and all questions you might have about sleep.... There’s plenty of practical information, like how to overcome insomnia without drugs, how to combat snoring, how to encourage young children to get to sleep and, perhaps most useful, how to bet successfully on professional football games: our circadian rhythms favor West Coast teams over East Coast teams on Monday nights. This is one book that will not put you to sleep.” (Publishers Weekly )

Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2012: Forget about outer space and deep-ocean trenches. There are scientific mysteries far closer to home. In our bedrooms each night, something odd happens--we try to fall asleep. No one knows exactly why. What happens if we don't sleep? Do men sleep differently than women? Why is it so hard to put children to sleep? And if Freud was wrong about dreams, then why do we dream? In Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep, David K. Randall answers these questions and more. He takes us through the history of human thinking about sleep, all the way up to the latest rest techniques used by Olympic athletes. You'll sleep better having read this book. --Benjamin Moebius

Preventative medicine and early-detection are the buzz phrases these days, but drug policy expert and author Alan Cassels reveals scandalous truths in his new book SEEKING SICKNESS: Medical Screening and the Misguided Hunt for Disease, about the behind the scenes world of medical screening, where well-meaning practitioners and a profit-motivated industry offer to save our lives by exploiting our fears. Learn which screenings are the most beneficial, which could actually harm you, and the conflicts of interest of the people promoting these tests.

Dr. Naimon talks with Sandor Katz about his do-it-yourself guide to home fermentation. Katz contextualizes fermentation in terms of biological and cultural evolution, health and nutrition, and even economics.

"The Art of Fermentationis much more than a cookbook...Sure, it tells you how to do it, but much more important, it tells you what it means, and why an act as quotidian and practical as making your own sauerkraut represents nothing less than a way of engaging with the world. Or rather, with several different worlds, each nested inside the other: the invisible world of fungi and bacteria; the community in which you live; and the industrial food system that is undermining the health of our bodies and the land. This might seem like a large claim for a crock of sauerkraut, but Sandor Katz's signal achievement in this book is to convince you of its truth. To ferment your own food is to lodge an eloquent protest-of the senses-against the homogenization of flavors and food experiences now rolling like a great, undifferentiated lawn across the globe. It is also a declaration of independence from an economy that would much prefer we were all passive consumers of its commodities, rather than creators of unique products expressive of ourselves and the places where we live."--Michael Pollan, from the Foreword

Author and nutritional consultant, Lindsey Berkson, discusses her book,Safe Hormones, Smart Women. Learn about the relationship between hormones and nutrition, the protective side of estrogen, cutting-edge science, a brand new safe soy, the dangers of folic acid and the must eat and must avoid foods to protect your hormones.

Dr. Elson Haas, the founder and director of one of the first multdiscipline, integrative medical clinics in California, discusses the benefits of fasting, juice-cleansing and other detoxifcation diets. Whether you are fatigued, consume caffeine and sugar to make it through your day, have chronic sinus or digestive problems, can't quit smoking, or have high cholesterol, Dr. Haas's book The Detox Diet offers detoxifcation and cleansing protocols, recipes, and menus to help you regain your vitality.

Mark Kastel, senior farm and food policy analyst at the Cornucopia Institutetalks with host Dr. David Naimon about the unholy alliance between corporate agribusiness and the USDA, how it has corrupted the regulatory system designed to protect organic consumers and ethical farmers. Learn about the gimmicky, unproven and even dangerous synthetic additives in organic food and what you can do about it.

Health and Health Care Forum produced by Roberta Hall.

This special hour-long edition features talks by two distinguished physicians and scholars who toured Oregon recently speaking about health care reform.

Marcia Angell, M.D. is a physician, author, and the first woman to serve as editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine. She currently is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Arnold Seymour Relman M.D. is a professor of medicine, social medicine and emeritus at Harvard Medical School. He is a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine (1977–91) and writes extensively on medical publishing and reform of the U.S. health care system.

Both Angell and Relman have spoken out against for-profit medicine, commerical insurance and drug manufacture for many years.

About 74.5 million people in the United States age 20 and older have high blood pressure, which amounts to one in three adults, and it’s often said that in 90-95% percent of the cases, the cause is not known. Since the death rate is so high with this condition, we’ve got a bit of a murder mystery on our hands.

Host David Naimon talks with Dr. Gary Weiner, naturopathic physician, acupuncturist and co-owner of the Pearl Natural Health clinic, who will identify the key suspects in the case: diet, exercise, stress reduction, toxicity, poor circulation, and others. Because so many cases of high blood pressure respond to the natural therapies, Dr. Weiner wants to share results of his investigation to solve this. Learn many of the secrets to lowering the pressure the natural way.

Effective, safe, and inexpensive, medicinal herbs are simple to grow, and they can be used to naturally fortify your body against common upsets and ailments. Rosemary Gladstar, the godmother of modern herbalism, offers a fresh introduction to growing and using 33 of her favorite herbs, complete with tips on introducing an herb patch to your backyard garden and easy-to-follow recipes for brewing restorative teas, blending soothing salves, and making tinctures, oils, syrups, and pills.